Motor for Coin Sorter

thingiverse

The coin sorting machine originally designed by neoprenox can fairly sort coins, but operating it can be frustrating for those with less patience and manual dexterity. This can be fixed by removing the crank and driving the wheel with a common N20 gearbox motor. Besides making it more automatic, a motor allows you to operate it without cranking forces resulting in deformations and jammed coins. I have tested this remix by sorting $140 worth of random US coins. It works very well with just USB power, or a single 18650. ***Required parts:*** *1@ printed adapter* *1@ printed shaft clamp* *1@ printed torque arm* *2@ M3-10 bolts w/ nuts* *1@ 6V 35RPM N20 geared motor* https://www.amazon.com/30RPM-Shaft-Metal-Gearwheel-GA12-N20/dp/B00SL1R7E2/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=geared+motor&qid=1620511987&sr=8-2 In my experiments I found that 6V 35RPM was about right when using a 5V usb supply to power the coin sorter. The coin wheel and output ramp seem to reliably handle ~2 coins per second (30RPM). It jams too often using a 60RPM gear motor. The shorter N20 motors have more than enough torque for this application, but N30 also fit and will work just fine. ***Assembly:*** Remove the original crank shaft, handle, gears, and center shaft (keep the small printed washer) from you coin sorter. Insert the printed adapter on your coin sorter wheel from the top, the same way as the original shaft went in. Add the original small printed washer to the shaft from underneath, then slide on the shaft clamp with an M3 bolt/nut installed loosely. Clamp the torque arm to the motor with an M3 bolt and nut. While pressing down on the adapter from the wheel side, insert the motor shaft into the D shaped hole in the adapter from underneath. Push the shaft in until the tip of the arm is about 1mm from touching on open flat spot of the frame. Tighten the shaft clamp to the adapter such that it fits snug against the upper frame. The goal with fitting the shaft clamp is to eliminate any up/down slop on the adapter, but keep it loose enough that it still rotates 360* without binding. Done... when the motor is powered up with the correct polarity, the arm will rotate and engage with the coin output ramp. Reverse motor wires if it rotates backwards. You can get creative with whatever switches, plugs, and power supplies you like. I just have a usb plug coming out of a hole in the back of my machine, with no switches. Note that I printed my parts with an SLA printer using Siraya Tough Blu resin... but I designed all the parts to work with FDM as well. If you ran it with the hand crank before, then your printer will do even better with the motor parts. I used a floating arm design to minimize loading on the main shaft; the resulting motion is much smoother and tolerant of print imperfecions.